That such a
talent as Balotelli was released by City without argument is a sign of the
disdain in which he is held at the Etihad campus. The negatives finally outweighed the positives,
with the final straw perhaps coming four weeks ago as the temperamental forward
became
involved in a physical altercation with coach – and his most prominent backer
– Roberto Mancini.

While the
deal may help the City dressing room coalesce and focus on overhauling
crosstown rivals Manchester United, it also rids the club of their most gifted
player. With Balotelli, there are no
absolutes – he every statement about him must be accompanied by a “but”, an “if”
or a “when”.

Mario
Balotelli is a player with a presence so large that you can’t judge anything
he does from only one angle. He is a
colourful, 3D character in a world that paint its characters like Steamboat
Willy. This might be his greatest hurdle
in keeping popular sentiment positive: football media often portrays its
subjects in unforgiving black and white.

He is the
most talented Italian striker to emerge since Antonio Cassano (at least) and also
a man who exemplifies persistent problems with authority. He’s a genius, and a madman. A word or a sentence isn’t enough to articulate
the truth of Mario Balotelli.

A three-dimensional outlook is also the only way
to evaluate his transfer to the Fashion City.
He will win games for the Rossoneri,
but also frustrate. It’s a win for Manchester
City, but also a loss – talents like Mario emerge twice a decade. How very Balotelli.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

There are many sequelae to Cricket Australia's revolving door selection policy, but one that has gone unnoticed until now is the volume of run-outs seen in all formats of cricket.

It stands to reason: every player has their own style of running. They might call early or late, be hesitant or direct or pigheaded. Seeing as batting practice occurs mostly in the nets where partnership running is difficult to trial, there is a consequent lack of training afforded to running between wickets. This is only magnified when viewed through the prism of inconsistency: how can a player know the running tendencies of his teammates when so many partners are dropped in and out of the lineup?

In International cricket this season, David Warner has batted with 13 different partners ranging from Ed Cowan to Nathan Lyon. With the paucity of First Class games available to international teams - tour matches being a thing of the past - and a crowded schedule, communication suffers and run-outs quickly follow.

It takes time for players to bed into a team, both emotionally and stylistically. The flurry of players we see short of their crease is just testament to the changing environment batsmen particularly are forced to endure.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Cricket Australia and their coaching staff have come in for
criticism regarding the policy formerly known as rotation, Strategic Player Management
(SPM). With precocious – but premature
- talents like Steve Smith shunted into the canary yellow as Usman Khawaja is
given his leave, rotation has become another rod with which to beat the
national body.

David Mutton wrote recently that the rotation policy
favoured by CA isn’t
so much pragmatism but an ideology – something to be sought after, an end
rather than the means. With their
infatuation with newcomers, Australian administrators seek a panacea to remove
them from this time of trial.

The fact that SPM has been labelled a policy doesn’t help:
while governmental policy is a plan with funding attached, its corporate counterpart
pure risk-management, less about governance but a get-out for those unable or
afraid to make decisions. Sounds perfect
for faceless
bureaucracy that is Cricket Australia.

Rather than being a long-term benefit to Australian cricket,
the recent policy of haphazard squad rotation undermines team cohesion and actually
does just the opposite.

In theory, player rotation makes perfect sense. It allows tired players the rest needed to
reduce injury and fatigue, while simultaneously allowing the outstanding youth
talents with opportunities to see what the top level is all about.

Easily forgotten is that the results haven’t yet been proven. Rested players still break down (c.f. Cummins,
Pat and Pattinson, James), perhaps making Strategic Player Management (SPM)
the cricketing equivalent of echinacea: a commonsense medical management that
gained widespread uptake on the open-market uptake but
was really just bollocks. Rotation
may or may not work.

Part of confusion is that CA isn’t exactly sure why they are rotating players through the
coloured clothes. Is it to blood youth, allow
player recuperation, help restore form or a happy commonstance of all? Was Glenn Maxwell’s ODI debut an audition for
a role in the lower order a la Mike
Hussey or just a consequence of his form in Australia’s new, annual,
December-long tee-time? It’s injury
prevention, it’s specialized coaching, it’s player wellbeing, it’s rotation it’s … just the vibe of the
thing. Such a lack of boardroom
vision can’t help but bleed down to the players.

There is little evidence to back up resting as an ideology,
particularly with regard to player wellbeing.
It’s hard to fault Mickey Arthur et al for resting Peter Siddle after
his efforts against South Africa in Adelaide, but for Mitch
Starc to suffer likewise immediately after his best Test bowling beggared both
belief and common sense. If this was
done in the name of Starc’s health, we must be concerned of his durability on every
tour he participates in.

Cricket Australia has obviously decided that preserving their
best on-field assets is the way to happy and productive cricket. Unfortunately, James Sutherland and his mob would
be far better served deploying Strategic Player Management as part of their scheduling
process rather than as an escape clause for players wedged into an overcrowded
calendar. In it’s current form, SPM is
no more than damage-control.

If SPM doesn’t actually produce less injuries, then how
about the youth benefits? While players
have missed games going back decades, Strategic Player Management in the twenty-first
century begins and ends with Liverpool Football Club under the reign of Rafael
Benitez. The Spaniard is perhaps
the greatest proselytizer of SPM there is; he is a tactically gifted coach
who puts faith in young players time and again.
However, the results from his time doing so at football’s most famous
club are far from convincing. Players still got injured and few
of the vaunted youth allegedly inspired by opportunity have kicked on into
the Liverpool first team.

Great teams can afford dalliances with Smith, Maxwell, Chris
Lynn or Shaun
Marsh because the results don’t suffer in the long term. Anyone who thinks this iteration of Australia
is anything more than functional would seem to watch too much commentary by Channel
Nine.

Results bring about more than revenue. Communal trials are what builds a team from a
collection of individual parts. Australia
has
no narrative, no identity partly because they haven’t had the chance to
share enough cricket together. Rather
than building team spirit, SPM can ramp up internal rivalries, clouding the
identities that have begun to coalesce.

The fact is that rotation is here to stay. It’s another example of Cricket Australia
running the sport froma middle management point of view. The Australians will just have to thrive in
spite of its shortsightedness.

Sneijder’s time at Inter Milan had run its course. His lavish wages – and perhaps his abrasive
nature – didn’t fit with club President Massimo Moratti’s schemes for a leaner
Internazionale; the result was his exile from the club in September for
refusing a contract which would scale his wages back by a seven-figure sum.

While the fact Sneijder was sold is interesting in itself,
his impact on his new club will be well worth watching. While they
are a quality team, Galatasaray are headlined by familiar names – Altintop,
Riera, Melo, Elmander – rather than superstars.
It will be Sneijder (who will fit in slightly forward of Felipe Melo and
behind Turkey striker Burak Yilmaz), Hamit Altintop and then then everyone
else. “The Smurf” will be called on to
provide not only provide his trademark passing, but also a sense of the
spectacular and confidence that Galatasaray are capable of beating anyone.

That he has moved reinforces again the nomadic nature of
football. While player movement has
always been a fixture of the sport –Sneijder himself has moved emigrated three
times – the number of truly great players who have changed club colours over
the past five years is amazing.

Scanning the Guardian’s recent
list of the 100 best players in the world reveals that within that hundred,
there have been 49 transfers since the conclusion of the most recent World
Cup. Twelve of these involve players
listed as being in the Guardian’s Top 30.
Of those same 49, nineteen occurred before or during the current season.

Player movement is great.
It allows for a renewed interest not often seen in sports with salary
caps, and provides for hope when perhaps the previous season there was
none. Even though Galatasaray are currently
perched atop the Super Lig table, the addition of a world-class player like
Wesley Sneijder gives their fans reason for excitement (and to set off flares)
at the hope of further challenging Europe’s best teams.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Chelsea manager Rafael
Benítez is in a tough spot. In fact,
he’d probably be the first to admit it, though it would come with a caveat: often
trial is accompanied by opportunity.

Benítez arrived at
Chelsea in November, tasked with renewing a project with its genesis in former
boss Andre Villas-Boas: the refreshment and gentrification of a team with roots
reaching back to the Claudio Ranieri era – that is, eight years and eight
managers ago. The former Liverpool
manager is neither liked at Stamford Bridge nor blessed with long-term job
security: comments made of Chelsea supporters have hardly endeared himself to the Blues
faithful, while Chelsea
owner Roman Abramovich appears to have a thing for former Barcelona manager Pep
Guardiola.

The first two players
seemingly to be moved on are stalwarts Ashley Cole and Frank Lampard, neither
of whom have been offered new contracts despite their current deals expiring in
June. Cole has been more vocal, as is his wont – indeed, he
probably has more currency still being near the peak of his powers and retaining
his position as England’s left-back. In
contrast, while both sides have leaked information concerning a lack of
contract negotiations, Lampard himself has been relatively quiet, by default claiming
the moral high ground as a club champion ushered out the door before his time.

Sources suggested it
was Benítez’s personal relationship with Abramovich that allowed him to take
the manager’s role. After being out of
work for nearly two years, it was a low-risk: do what Roman wanted and if
everything works out, take control of the club in the long(er) term; at worst,
Rafa could – and has, somewhat – proved his big-club bona fides after an ill-fated spell at Inter Milan.

In employing an
unpopular henchman with serious questions over his long-term future, Abramovich
has played to Russian money stereotype, but has done so with great effect. Benítez, a hard-nosed, obstinate – and talented
– manager is
perhaps the best appointment for a thankless task. Benítez has taken on the role as a goon to
shield his boss, and perhaps his replacement, from tarnishing their reputation
with the fans.

It could be that Benítez wins the position
full-time: there are few other managers as talented and available as he
is. However, his poor popularity level
and the impending availability of entropy-generating, serial Benítez-antagonist
and former Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho, a successful trial period for Rafa won’t
necessarily result in continued employment.
This is again, to type: when did you meet a henchman who wasn’t
ultimately disposable?

Watson, despite
his bulging physique and American Dad!-style
chin, just isn’t made for bowling long spells.
He sends the ball down well and over the past decade has increased his
movement both through the air and off the pitch. He is one of the few part-timers with the
ability to change a match. However, the forty-eight
overs he sent down in Hobart have likely put him out of the rest of the
International summer.

In
response, Watson elected to remove himself semi-permanently from the Australian
attack. This comes in spite of the
rather extreme circumstances of Hobart. Those
four dozen overs were by far the most he’s bowled in a Test: before Bellerive, the most Watson had ever bowled
in five-day competition was 35 overs at Nagpur during Jason Krezja’s match.

It’s
damning for Watson that rather than moderating his bowling, he has turned his
back on the leather altogether. Not so
much for his character but his Test career, because flinging the leather is
perhaps the one thing that differentiates him from his “competition” for a position
in Australia’s top order.

While
said competition is hardly beating at the door with force, Watson has voluntarily removed his single most
attractive, marketable skill. Selectors
make selections based on the amount of currency held by players: players gain
those bargaining chips by accumulating runs or wickets, by boasting a legacy or
a posing unique threat to the opposition.
Only two
years from being anointed the next great one, Watson has none of these.

It has
been nearly 2 ½ years since he made his second – and
last, til now – Test ton. Over that
span, his average has been 35.7, near enough his career number of 37. If one was to hazard a guess at what replacement-level at Test level was, 35 might well be it:
capable of some excellence and a shedload of utter mediocrity.

Whether
any putative successors could actually reach this theoretical replacement level
is very much up for debate. Usman
Khawaja seems to have first dibs on Mike Hussey’s vacated no. 6 position,
leaving Watson’s challengers the likes of of Alex Doolan, Joe Burns and Glenn
Maxwell. Not only does each of these
players have some domestic currency to present the selectors, but each also hints
at the unique promise of future glories.
Watson, with his pedestrian batsmanship and now shorn of his bowling,
presents an argument based heavily upon incumbency and seniority.

His decision, reached in harmony with coach
Mickey Arthur, robs Watson of some of his cricketing value. It leaves him alone at the crease with only
his guile to protect him. If ever a
thought should scare Australian cricket fans - and the player himself - it is the thought of Shane Watson left
to survive on only his wits.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

On
Saturday, Kevin-Prince Boateng did a remarkable thing. We like remarkable things, especially in the
face of bigotry. During the first half
of a friendly match against Pro Patria, the Ghanaian forward led his AC Milan teammates in a
walk-off after
being subjected to racist abuse from a section of the crowd.

The hope
is that this could be a major blow in the fight against racism in football and Boateng
has received deserved support from all corners.

Except,
notably, from FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who suggested that walk-offs were “running away”
from racism. This drew boos from the chorus and for good
reason: while the President could have expressed logical reservations at the
long-term ramifications of walk-offs, yet again his choice of phrase was not so
much unfortunate as downright harmful.
His suggestion that walk-offs were in any way running from racism in
part robs any targeted player of some of the power to fight back.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

In
English football, one of the most debated players is Liverpool and Uruguay forward
Luis Suárez. Rumours – and even some visuals– of alleged misdeeds arrived
on British soil before he did in early 2011; since then, his list of perceived
sins is ... notable.

Luis Suárez
far more than a Black Hat bad guy or simple cheat. He is the single best example of the
dichotomy that exists between football’s rules and their on-field execution.

The
latest act in Suárez’s vile reign of terror occurred on Sunday as he scored a
decisive goal against 5th-tier Mansfield Town after controlling the ball with his
right hand. As always, intentionality – as fits his
narrative – can only be guessed at, especially when seen by a referee at live
speeds and without replay.

The
dictionary definition of cheating is to act dishonestly or unfairly to
gain an advantage. According to that black and white dogma, if
he deliberately controlled the ball with his hand, Luis Suárez cheated. Therefore, so did Thierry Henry, when he
controlled the ball to score his game-winner
against Ireland during World Cup qualifying in 2010. As has every player who ever earned a penalty
by simulation or popped an opponent with an elbow and escaped unscathed.

The word
“cheat” is not often used in sport. When
it is, it’s usually preceded by the adjective “drug”. It is a label to be avoided and the gravitas
of such a moniker isn’t taken lightly.
Add to this the multifactorial nature of any situation in sport, difficulty
in judging intent and simple urge to avoid litigation and it’s probably for the
best that the phrase isn’t bandied about.
As
ESPN commentator Jon Champion found out on Sunday, the term “cheat” doesn’t
provide for much wiggle room; it is a black-and-white descriptor that just
doesn’t sit right.

The
rules of a sport are just as monochromatic, and plainly as
two-dimensional. Unfortunately, the
field is green, white and most certainly encompassing not only third but fourth
dimensions. That they are enforced by
humans with (one presumes) opinions, reasoning skills, no replays and imperfect
positioning mean rules can only be best implemented
rather than perfectly applied. Referees
cannot be 100% correct and this means that players will accordingly risk sanctions
to try and gain an advantage.

Suárez
puts himself in positions to take those risks and obtain that advantage more
than almost anyone else in the game.
This doesn’t make him evil, or a cheat (unless you like black and white
descriptors); it makes him a pragmatist – someone who values results over
aesthetics. That he can shape matches –
and debate – to such an extent is actually a compliment, of sorts.

Luis
Suárez is not evil. Well, not as far as
I know, anyway. He has a knack for being
in the right (wrong?) place at the right (wrong?) time. And this rare talent gives him more
opportunity to display how much he’s prepared to trade for a Liverpool win.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

featuring the very welcome return of Ben Roberts, cricket connoisseur.

The recent passing
of both Tony Greig and Christopher Martin-Jenkins, along with that of PeterRoebuck a little over 12 months ago has forced a reflection on the poor state
of cricket commentary in Australia. Where the sound of cricket musings used to
form an addictively pleasant and informative background to the summer, I find
myself increasingly easily turned away.

I have almost
given up on watching the cricket on TV, even with the sound down. Channel 9
constantly flits about with replays and technology, trying to ensure the viewer
has no downtime whatsoever. But this counters one of the great
appeals of cricket as a game, the pauses and time between balls allow for
anticipation to rise, anticipation in cricket and life is often the greater
thrill. The need to play with the technology means that great cricket thinkers the
likes of Michael Slater and Mark Nicholas (refer their earlier work) might as
well be robots.

Greig never shied
away from the technology available, but he always seemed to be giving it a
pinch of salt and not taking it too seriously. Funnily enough, Richie Benaud
(try to find an article about where the word ‘doyen’ does not
precede his name, I dare you. Double dare you.) still inhabits the commentary box and famously advises - “… put your brain into gear and if you can
add to what's on the screen then do it, otherwise shut up.” Present-day producers might want to
reflect on that.

Even the ABC (usually
a safe option) is flagging. Their use of current first class cricketers is only
ever going to produce cliché and platitude. Does anyone really believe cricketers from
states other than QLD & WA think highly of Mitchell Johnson’s selection?
Not likely, they’ve gotten stuck into him (and Jessica) for years in the local
stuff for being picked ahead of their teammates. Roebuck’s strong, independent
analysis on proceedings is sorely missed. As a listener, even if you didn't agree, his
considered comment made you think. Kerry O’Keeffe’s comedic anecdotes are tiring
and without an appropriate foil (like the straight laced Roebuck), fall flat.

Regardless of the
medium, the domestic T20 tournaments have allowed sickening levels of hyperbole
to enter commentary boxes. Yes, a fringe first
class cricketer (who no one except his mum has ever heard of) or a past-it
former international (of questionable talent then and now) has swung
ridiculously hard at the ball for the sixth time straight in the over and
finally connected enough for it to just clear ridiculously short boundaries.
But this does not mean that you, a fringe first class cricketer (who no one
except your mum has ever heard of) or caller usually employed as an “around the
grounds” man during football season, sitting in the commentary box need to burst
into unbridled whooping.

Granted he was afforded
high cost, fee-paying education that gave him clipped tones and high command of
the English language, but Martin-Jenkins could speak ten words that will be
recalled for a lifetime where an infinite amount of screeching at an
unimportant T20 match will be forgotten immediately; and what took more of the
speaker’s energy?*

Let the greatest
game on earth speak for itself.

(Ed. - listen to the latest installment of The Cricket Sadist Hour with Gideon Haigh to hear more on how incisive and talented the ineffable Martin-Jenkins was).

Friday, January 4, 2013

After literally an two and a half hours of data collection and limited analysis, we've manage to update Balanced Sports' European Goalkeeper Stats page. It now includes all of 2011-12 and stats from the first half of 2012-13.

Thanks must go to Blogger, whose algorithms for some reason stopped screwing up the spreadsheet inserts.